Many medicaments and other ingestible or non-ingestible consumer products are adversely affected if exposed to moisture or moist air for a period of time and must be protected against such exposure between production and consumption. The damage may take the form of moisture absorption that changes the physical properties of the products (e.g. making pills or particles of powder clump together) or even chemical change or corrosion. When such products are produced and sold in small amounts and in discrete unit form (e.g. pills or tablets), they are often sealed in re-closable containers made of glass or plastics, such as conventional pill or tablet bottles, to which a desiccant, in the form of a sachet or packet, is added to remove any moisture from the enclosed atmosphere.
A conventional desiccant sachet is inserted into the container with the product itself. The desiccant sachet is important because it acts to remove any moisture that may permeate into the container during storage or transportation and also acts to remove moisture that may have entered the container when a consumer opens or closes the container. Because the desiccant sachet is free floating within the container, there is therefore a risk that the sachet or packet or canister may be removed once the container has been opened but before the product has been completely used up, thereby placing remaining product at risk of moisture damage. Also, there is a risk that the sachet may rupture or be accidentally consumed along with the product itself, thus creating a hazard for the user. It is also to be noted that the production and insertion of such sachet or packet or canister adds an undesired cost to the production of the product. In addition, there is a risk that the inserting equipment will miss inserting the sachet, packet or canister into the container, thereby leaving the consumable product unprotected and subject to premature loss of efficacy.